Miriam Lord: Fine Gael happy to dish it out as Sinn Féin’s election expenses come under fire

Revenge is a dish best eaten tepid.

The Taoiseach tucked in on Tuesday afternoon but didn’t make a meal of it. He’s waiting for the full banquet.

Because while the heat may be gone from Paschal Donohoe’s expenses embarrassment, Fine Gael hasn’t forgotten the principal role Sinn Féin played in enthusiastically hauling him over the coals.

Remember the Postergate hullabaloo?

Stardust verdicts: Families cried. Jurors cried. Lawyers cried.

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Miriam Lord: Mary Lou – yes, Mary Lou – accuses Taoiseach of ‘playing to the gallery’

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Miriam Lord: Mary Lou fires up the burners to roast new Taoiseach, but Simon Harris keeps his cool

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It’s Fianna Fáil’s ardfheis, but everyone wants to play Simon Says

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It’s been a month.

The Minister for Public Expenditure in the soup over not declaring the cost of posturing services provided by a businessman friend. The Government in a stew and the Opposition dining out on its discomfort.

It was a brief political crisis. Poster boy Paschal embroiled in a blazing controversy which was unexpectedly cut short by his chief inquisitors.

During the course of this two-week bunfight, a scandalised Mary Lou McDonald and an impassioned Pearse Doherty led the Dáil charge, colleagues saturating the airwaves with outrage until their indignation boomeranged and bit them on the behind.

They piped down sharpish as soon as it emerged that Sinn Féin has some very serious questions of its own to answer about how upfront the party has been in both paying and declaring its own campaign bills.

No matter. Move on.

Plenty more controversies to keep the anger going and loads more scandals waiting in the wings – there hasn’t been a property investment related story about a Minister for at least a week.

But the Government is frustrated by what it perceives to be a cynical head-on-plate approach by its main political rivals where perspective is lost in the pursuit of political scalps.

Perish the thought any Coalition party would ever indulge in such tactics.

Fine Gael is particularly sore over the brazen way Sinn Féin went after the sainted Paschal when his transgression turns out to be small beer in the face of some interesting allegations over the other party’s accounting practices.

Still, it’s time to move on.

So it was no surprise when the Government’s newly unveiled cost-of-living package shared centre stage in the Dáil on Tuesday afternoon, co-starring with the increasing cost of fertiliser.

Before business resumed for the week in Leinster House, the three Coalition leaders took to the steps of Government Buildings to sing the praises of their financial support package, which is definitely not a mini-budget. The Taoiseach gets very cross when Opposition leaders insist that it is.

They looked happy, squinting and smiling into the bright spring sunshine.

This is where they have had some of their greatest political moments, standing on those steps and addressing an attentive nation during the Covid crisis.

Steadfast, authoritative, reassuring, hopeful.

Breaking bad news sensitively and good news in a heartwarming fashion.

Those were the days.

This time, whatever they had to say would be picked apart and criticised by the ingrates next door in the Dáil. “The current Opposition will do what it does and dismiss everything constructive,” sighed Micheál Martin.

He was wrong. The Opposition welcomed the measures and focused their disappointment on what was missing.

“We welcome these additional support payments to help vulnerable people,” declared Mary Lou McDonald at the outset. “But for the life of me I can’t understand how the three men leading Government, after spending two months in talk, could produce a package that is silent on housing.”

Róisín Shortall of the Social Democrats took a characteristically harder line and said the effort was “wholly inadequate”.

There was not enough in the new measures to help tackle child poverty, she told Leo Varadkar, reminding him that when he became Taoiseach for the second time in December he vowed to do everything in his power to tackle the issue.

Her words stung him.

“I think it’s unfair to say that we are not interested in reducing child poverty,” he replied, outlining the measures the Government has taken in the space of just a year.

“They’re not insignificant, deputy, and I think you’re being a bit mean-spirited in not acknowledging it.”

Róisín remained thoroughly unimpressed, as is her wont.

This irked the Taoiseach, who had just listed some of the most recent supports introduced to help children.

“Like, can you give an example of a government, in the last five, 10, 12, 15, 30 years, that has done so much in such a short period of time?”

He warmed to the subject.

“And I would challenge you to do that actually.”

Danny Healy-Rae was more interested in the price of fertiliser, which is at an all-time high and causing all sorts of problems for farmers and adding to rising food prices.

“Thanks very much, deputy, for raising the important issue of fertiliser prices. And I think we all know that the price of fertiliser has gone through the roof in the last year or so.”

Which is not something you hear every day from Leo Varadkar.

Independent Verona Murphy returned to the topic.

“Taoiseach, the farming community will be a bit disappointed to hear you say earlier that you weren’t aware of what the price of fertiliser is in the UK per tonne because it’s been their talking point for a week.”

Verona has a great sense of humour.

Leaders’ Questions were over, the chamber was almost empty and questions of policy and legislation were drawing to a close when Fine Gael’s Emer Higgins, Leo’s constituency colleague, rose to her feet with a question about the need to review current electoral law and protect “democracy from external influences like political donations from non-citizens outside the State”.

This brought her on to this weekend’s story in The Irish Times about Sinn Féin’s finances and “further contradictions on their electoral spend”.

“They’re the richest party in this country and yet they failed repeatedly to pay their bills to a local business in my constituency,” she said.

What is happening with our electoral laws now, asked Emer, teeing up the Taoiseach for the reply he just so happened to have on a sheet of paper.

“I want to thank the deputy for raising this important issue over our electoral laws,” said Leo, launching into the detail of our story on Saturday.

Apparently Sipo is examining Sinn Féin’s accounts which have also been examined by “senior independent accountants” and “the anomalies” have been confirmed.

“We’re talking large sums of money – hundreds of thousands of euros,” he said, trying to sound surprised.

“We’ve had tribunals for less, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, and this could become a major political issue.”

He thought it would be appropriate to have Dáil statements on the matter, and for Mary Lou and Pearse to come before the House and explain everything.

It was very important, for democracy, that the matter be discussed in the House.

“I strongly believe that accountability shouldn’t just be for Government parties. This is public money and public money needs to be minded.”

A month on. But not forgotten.